Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
several more millions from the revenue. Cardwell, and some of that
soft-headed set, who call themselves Peelites, wish to take the duties
off tea, and they ought by all means to be encouraged. Tobacco follows
next, of course; and as smoking and snuffing are now almost universal,
the repeal of the duties on these articles would be immensely popular.
Malt goes, and so does sugar,--and then, my dear friend, where's your
revenue, and where the means of paying the interest of the national
debt? Don't you see what a beautiful field is open to us, if we can
only keep our own men from making premature disclosures, and pander
properly to the public appetite for getting rid of taxation? By
itself, direct taxation cannot stand six months. That fact in natural
history has been ascertained by so many experiments, and consequent
revolutions, from the days of Wat Tyler downwards, that I need not
fatigue you by recapitulating them. The reimposition of the Income Tax
for three years is an immense point in our favour. I never felt so
nervous in my life as during the Ministerial crisis, when it appeared
possible that Stanley might come in. I knew that, if he succeeded in
forming a Government, the Income Tax was doomed, and then, of course,
we must have had a revision of the tariff; and probably he would have
proposed to levy such duties upon imports as might put the British
artisan, labourer, and grower, on a fair level to compete with the
foreigner, at least in respect of taxation. Had he succeeded, our game
was up. But, most fortunately, we have escaped that danger. I shall
ever regard the glass house in Hyde Park with feelings of peculiar
gratitude; for I am convinced that, but for that sublime erection,
we should have lost the services of Sir Charles Wood, and, with him,
lost all chance of carrying into execution those schemes which we
consider most important for the entire ascendency of Manchester.
Fortunately, Wood is spared to us. He is an excellent confiding
creature--as innocent as a lamb who is tempted into the precincts of
the slaughter-house by the proffer of a bunch of clover; and if we can
manage to keep him in office a little longer, why, between ourselves, I
think, Dunshunner, we may look upon the matter as achieved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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